The March First National Day of Action — What to Expect on #M1

February 29, 2012 in Access, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Governance, History, Media, Occupy Wall Street, Organizing, Police, Student Power | by | Leave a comment

For the last three years, the first week of March has seen a national day of co-ordinated student action in support of accessible, democratic higher education.

The 2010 day of action came as the nation’s most active year of student protest in decades was in full swing. Building on the California protests and occupations of Fall 2009, March 4 saw more than 120 actions in thirty-three states, and drew a level of media attention that was, for its time, astonishing. A year and a half before Occupy Wall Street was launched, eleven months before the Wisconsin statehouse occupation began, #March4 was for many the first sign that something big and new was bubbling up from the campuses.

March 2, 2011 was a bit smaller than March 4, 2010, at least in part because of administrators’ success in quieting student protest in California the previous fall. But it did produce three campus occupations — again, this is well before Occupy Wall Street — including a feminist protest in Pennsylvania, a statehouse solidarity occupation in Wisconsin, and the audacious (and chilling) occupation of the ledge of a building on the Berkeley campus. A week later, high school students staged their first nationally co-ordinated day of protest in recent memory, and the momentum of the campus movement hasn’t subsided since.

So what can we expect to see tomorrow, in the first day of campus action of the OWS era? The Nation has a piece up offering a taste of what’s brewing, while the coordinating group Occupy Colleges lists 64 campuses that they expect to be acting up in one way or another. In California, March 1 is the kickoff of a planned week of action that’s slated to culminate in a state capitol occupation, and there’s a lot of other interesting stuff in the pipeline.

Tomorrow is going to be  a very interesting day.

Evening Update | As I reported last week, there have been 37 campus occupations in the US and Canada so far this academic year. (That’s not protests, occupations.) It’s safe to say that number will be higher by Friday. Huffington Post also has a good overview of what’s in store (posted yesterday).

March 1 Morning Update | I’ll be liveblogging the day’s events here.

Quebec Student Strike Against Tuition Hikes Is Huge. And Growing.

February 23, 2012 in Access, Campus Protests, Organizing, Politics, Student Power, The Corporate University, Tuition and Fees | by | 7 comments

A tuition fee protest is gaining momentum in Quebec this week, with organizers claiming that more than fifty thousand students are now participating in an ongoing student strike. Students have taken to the streets of Montreal several times this week, with one group shutting down a major city bridge at the start of rush hour this afternoon. Riot police dispersed the protesters with pepper spray, re-opening the span after twenty minutes. The size of today’s main march has been estimated at five thousand.

The students are mobilizing against planned annual fee hikes that would raise annual tuition from $2168 to $3793 over the next five years.

The anti-hike protests are controversial in some quarters, as Quebec’s tuition rates are far below the national average. But as I noted on Twitter a few minutes ago, the idea that the average tuition rate is the right tuition rate is incredibly pernicious. If you start from the premise that every tuition rate below some “average” benchmark should properly be raised, then each tuition increase justifies the next one.

Or, to put it another way…

More on the Quebec protests soon.

More Than Three Dozen Campus Occupations In the Last Five Months

February 23, 2012 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Occupy Wall Street, Organizing, Student Power | by | 3 comments

As the map below shows, students have staged more than three dozen campus occupations across the United States and Canada during the 2011-12 academic year. Starting with the University of New Orleans at the end of August, more than two weeks before Occupy Wall Street kicked off, the movement has grown to encompass at least thirteen states and one Canadian province.

Campuses hosting occupations have been public and private, urban and rural. They have included university centers and no fewer than four community colleges. Students have occupied indoors and outdoors. They have been rousted by police. They have been beaten. They have been arrested. They have been pepper-sprayed. And in many cases they have come back from such treatment to re-establish occupations larger and more lasting than those that were cut short.

Some occupations have won concrete victories, others have refused to articulate demands. Some have been mounted by students alone, others have been supported by faculty, staff, and community members. Together, these actions represent a new phase in American student organizing.

And it’s only February.

This map presently includes detailed information about all 37 campus occupations of which I’m aware. It will be updated on an ongoing basis for the rest of the academic year — please disseminate it widely and forward any additional data you may have.

Quote of the Day

February 23, 2012 in History, Quotes | by | Leave a comment

“All Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.”

—WEB DuBois

On Police Brutality, Campus Dialogue, and UC Davis

February 23, 2012 in Administration, Campus Communities, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Governance, Litigation, Organizing, Police, Violence | by | 1 comment

I wrote yesterday about the lawsuit filed by 19 UC Davis students and recent graduates who were subject to pepper spraying, other police violence, and false arrest last November 18. The students are suing fifty-six university employees for violating their constitutional and statutory rights, but the list of defendants only has six names on it.

Why? Because only one of the dozens of police officers who participated in the attack on the protesters has been identified by the university.

It’s more than three months after the incident. Video of the day’s events has been shown over and over again throughout the planet. But UC Davis still won’t tell its students which of its campus police officers brutalized them.

In addition to the pepper-spraying, which was conducted by two officers, the lawsuit alleges that one student was thrown to the ground where his head struck a lawn sprinkler fixture. Another was pinned down after having been pepper sprayed. Another was dragged, handcuffed, to a police car. Another was “slammed to the ground,” kneed, and kneeled on, then denied medical assistance.

None of the officers who engaged in these acts, other than the two who were videotaped pepper-spraying students without cause, have been suspended. As far as is publicly known, all are still at UC Davis, working alongside the sixteen plaintiffs who are still students there.

And yet the faculty of the university, in a 645-343 vote, praised Chancellor Katehi last week as “a Chancellor who engages in a full and open dialogue with students, staff, and faculty,” saying that her resignation “would have devastating effects on the moral and academic standing of the campus.”

“It is time,” say the UC Davis faculty, “to promote a constructive healing process.” When will these professors call for transparency and accountability for the campus police?

About This Blog

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StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

To contact Angus, click here. For more about him, check out AngusJohnston.com.